Excess Baggage
by cbassluv
Summary: Jackson just wanted one thing from Scott. The last thing he wanted was all the drama that Scott McCall came with. NOT SLASH.


**AN: First attempt at a Teen Wolf story, and of course it's Scott/Jackson. :) Been sitting on this for a while, so I decided to publish the first part of it. Hopefully I'll feel the pressure to keep going. Many thanks to LadySilver for inspiring me to write at all. **

**Takes off from 'Co-Captains'. This chapter is vastly similar to the show's plot, but it's for a reason. **

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><p>Scott was surprised by how hard his heart dropped when he figured out who Peter Hale was talking about.<p>

"Jackson." he whispered, before taking off into the night. He ran as fast as he could, eventually going off the main road, into the cover of the brushes so that he could go on all fours. Stiles liked to remark about how this shouldn't be faster, or even comfortable, but it was. It was second nature to him now. He bounded through the woods and back alleyways, eventually ending up at the school, guided purely by instinct. Praying that he was right in remembering that Jackson was known to work out in the school gym on some evenings.

Sure enough, Jackson's Porsche was seated in the parking lot. He stood up straight, walking carefully towards the sleek vehicle. Among the smell of grease and gas, he picked up on Jackson's scent. That all too familiar mix of arrogance and expensive designer cologne that had been in his face too many times to count. He was about to walk up to the school when he was distracted by another all too familiar smell of leather and sweat.

Derek.

He swiveled and looked around, tilting his head upwards as he sniffed the air . Derek had been here. He was sure of it. Abandoning his plan to enter the school, he relied on his instincts again and took off for the Hale house. Remembering as he bound into the woods, the dead look in the older werewolf's eyes last night in the locker room. He had always been wary of him, never too sure what Derek's agenda was. And while he felt slightly justified in his suspicion, he got little satisfaction from the current turn of events. Part of him felt ... hoped that Derek was playing along with Peter as part of his big plan for revenge, but there was nothing to prove this. He knew first hand about the strange sense of loyalty werewolves could feel to the Alpha. He fought an involuntary shudder that was not from the night chill in his face.

Would he call it loyalty?

Those times that Peter had made him shift? That was pure mind control. Changing was hard and painful enough, but it was made even worse when he couldn't even control it. He couldn't control his thoughts and actions. Those times all he'd thought about was blood and how much he wanted to taste it, feel it on on his fingers. That night in the school, it had been almost exhilarating, preying on the others and smelling their fear, fantasizing about their screams as he bit into their flesh. Each and everyone of them.

Feeling slightly sick about how excited that thought had made him then, and even a little now, he turned his focus back on Derek.

Why would Derek be working with him? He still couldn't figure it out. He thought about Jackson, who craved this condition so badly, and as a result was probably going to get them both killed. Did he realize the urges he would have to fight?

He got to the front of the Hale house, with Derek's car parked in front. He half crawled to the vehicle, creeping along the side to avoid being seen through the windows. He could hear Jackson's heart. It was racing. But at least he was alive. Derek was talking to him. He sighed, relieved. He wasn't sure why he felt any sort of positive emotion towards Jackson. The guy was nothing but a pain. As if he didn't have enough to deal with, he now had to spend valuable time babysitting Jackson's stubborn ass. He rocked back on his hunches, briefly contemplating letting Derek have his way with him. Maybe Jackson was right, he wanted this much more than Scott ever did. He might handle it better.

He sensed Jackson's fear and subconsciously touched his side where he had been bitten all those weeks ago.

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><p>It hit Jackson suddenly that he had been setup. He turned to face Derek, eyes widening. Derek was walking slowly towards him, and he didn't need to have special powers to know that the man's intentions were not pure. He swallowed and continued to take slow steps back. He frantically searched for ways out this situation, while simultaneously berating himself for being so stupid.<p>

He tripped on the bottom step of the staircase and fell. The fall was hard and clumsy, but he was too scared to notice the pain building in his lower back. Derek's eyes turned a bright blue and he closed his own. This was not how this was supposed to end. Not like this. His eyes stung with unshed tears. He didn't stand a chance.

Derek was yelling at him now. "No one cares that you're the captain of the lacrosse team!"

"Excuse me. Co-Captain."

Jackson started, unable to believe what he was hearing till he slowly turned to look. Scott McCall, with an unusual and obnoxious smirk on his face stood above them at the top of the stairs. He didn't think he had never been so happy to see the him. He turned back nervously to Derek, whose scowl had deepened. Later on, upon reflection Jackson would be sure he saw him roll his eyes.

Scott jumped from his position and landed neatly in front of him, crouching with his arms spread, almost like he was shielding Jackson. He turned back to look at him and Jackson saw Scott as a werewolf for the first time.

He wasn't sure what he had envisioned, but this wasn't really it. Scott's soft features were disfigured, hairy and pinched, his ears long and pointed. And his hands ended in long, sharp- looking claws. The first word that came to his mind was 'freak'. That was Scott looked like. He looked like a horrible animal mutation. By the time he turned his gaze back to Derek, he realized he had changed as well. He looked even more animalistic than Scott did. And he looked pissed.

"Move!" Derek's voice was much deeper now, coming out almost in a growl.

"No."

"Fine, then I'll kill you as well."

Jackson swallowed for what felt like the millionth time that night, as he got confirmation that Derek had meant to kill him. He recoiled from the exchange in front of him, not sure whether to try and make a break for it now that Derek was distracted. He didn't have time to think this through because just then the other two young men went silent and stiffened, their unnaturally large ears prickling. In another situation, he would probably have been be fascinated by their canine behavior.

Right now however, something went whistling through the air from one of the windows. Before he could figure it out, the house was filled with the sound of gunfire. They all ducked and Jackson did the first thing he could think of.

Run.

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><p>Derek had always said he wasn't fast enough. This would be one of those times. Everything happened at once and he let himself get confused as he tended to do under intense pressure. The building's already weak structure and gaping windows allowed bullets to go whizzing through the house without hindrance. Derek scrambled out of the way, and he moved to do the same, but not before he felt the wind knocked out of him, accompanied by a burning pain in his side. He half fell into a corner and placed his hands over his ribs, which was already wet with blood. He'd been shot. He crawled further in with a strangled cry. He felt overwhelmingly sick and dizzy and despite his best efforts began to throw up. He was coughing up blood. Black blood. Through the pain that seemed to be burning up his insides, he was disgusted and confused by his body's sudden rebellion. Thin blue smoke was beginning to waft out of him, only adding more credence to the feeling of his internal organs being set on fire. He was dimly aware that Derek was calling his name but all he could think about was how much he needed this pain to stop.<p>

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><p>Jackson got behind the staircase and hid for a moment, looking around for an alternate exit. He saw a broken window in the adjacent room and decided that would do. Whoever was shooting at the house was still at it, he would have to be fast and lay low. He took 3 deep breaths and was on his feet when he saw Derek run back into his line of sight. He ran to the corner of the wall and dragged out a bent over Scott, yelling something at him before disappearing again. Scott stumbled towards him, coughing, and dropped to his knees, his right hand over his left side. His features were fully human again.<p>

He was also clearly wounded.

There was a loud roar outside and the gunshots got more frantic. Jackson knew he had to get out of there. He slid past Scott to the next room and had one leg out the window, when he found himself pausing to look back. Scott wasn't coming. He couldn't help wondering if he was okay. The little research he'd done told him werewolves healed easily, so there was the chance that whatever had happened to him he'd be fine.

"McCall?" he found himself calling out, hesitantly, his eyes fixed on the doorway. If Scott was going to move, he would see him. But after 10 long and painful seconds, nothing happened. He didn't have time for this. If Scott was right about the hunters thinking he was the other beta, being caught here was not going to do him any favours. He had to bolt.

He gripped the sill and threw the other leg over before stopping again. There was something nagging at him to go back. Just to check.

"Goddammit," he muttered, throwing both legs back in and peeping through the doorway. Scott was still crouched on the floor, his skin ashen and his mouth and shirt covered in something black and nasty looking. For a second, Jackson was scared he was dead, but then he noticed his chest heaving and a tiny little whimper occasionally escaped his lips, like a wounded puppy.

He wasn't sure where the inspiration to help him came from, but he did it anyway. The gunfire had suddenly eased off, so he felt a bit more confident running into the hallway. Grabbing the arm that wasn't draped around his torso, he lifted Scott up and dragged him out of the room. To his credit, Scott wasn't a dead weight, and was more than able to move with the help. Jackson leaned him against the window.

"Come on, we've got to get out of here." he urged.

"I can't..." Scott whined, placing a hand on Jackson's shoulder.

He sighed, impatiently. "McCall, if you don't climb out this window I swear to God I'm leaving you here." And that was the truth. He was already regretting doing any of this at all. He was beginning to think Scott wouldn't move, but then the boy grimaced and made his way clumsily out the window, falling heavily to the ground below. Jackson jumped out after him and helped him up again, the two of them hobbling quickly into the woods.

On his own, Jackson would have made it out in 10 minutes while holding a light jog, but he was being bogged down by Scott, and 20 minutes later they weren't even halfway. He was pretty sure he hadn't hated Scott anymore than he did right then. Scott continued to cough and whimper, and every so often they'd need to stop completely so that he could throw up more of that revolting black substance. At least they were a good, safe distance from the Hale house.

By the third go-round, Jackson's impatience began to turn to worry. Scott had fallen out of his grip and was on all fours, sputtering. It was then he noticed the thin blue smoke radiating from his side. This freaked him out. He hadn't signed up for _this._

"What the hell is going on, McCall? I thought you people were stronger than this?" he finally asked, horrified by how panicked he sounded. He couldn't have Scott dying on him. Somewhere, somehow, even if he left Scott here, he was pretty sure someone would figure out he had been with him, especially since they'd been so attached for the past half hour. He should have left him at the Hale house. At least then the cops could have pinned whatever happened to him on Derek.

Scott didn't answer immediately, instead he let himself fall completely to the ground. He was obviously in a lot of pain, and when his eyes fluttered open they were flashing between gold and dark brown. His breath was short and his face was covered in perspiration, plastering his dark hair to his head.

"Wolfs... bane... " he breathed, his face straining from the effort.

Jackson remembered what the doctor had said about him having wolfsbane poisoning. Was that was going on here? How did one resolve such a problem in a wounded werewolf? He looked around, nervously, before letting his gaze drift back to the creepy blue smoke. He didn't even want to know what that implied.

"What does that mean?" he finally asked, when Scott didn't volunteer more information.

Scott let out something like a sob and his head fell to the side. "Allison..." he whispered, before going completely silent.

Jackson fought the urge to roll his eyes. Talk about taking his creepy Allison obsession to the grave. The night was chilly but his body was damp with sweat beneath his jacket. He waited for Scott to move again, but he didn't. Was he dying? Was he dead?

The urge to flee the scene was growing more intense, and his feet began to step back. The right thing to do would be to get Scott to a hospital, but how the hell would he answer the inevitable questions? More importantly, how would he carry a full grown guy all the way to Beacon Hills Medical on foot?

"..Scott?" he whispered, deciding more with each second that running was the most viable option. On the flip-side, his conscience wouldn't let him turn away from Scott's small but firm form, covered in the black goo and a hole in his side. This nagging compassion irritated him. He weighed his options. Maybe he could carry him to somewhere more public, let a kindly passerby deal with it.

Jackson knew he wasn't the most empathic person around, but he liked to think he wasn't a complete asshole.

He bent and tried to lift Scott up from under his shoulders. He seemed to be completely out cold, but he was still breathing. He hadn't noticed how much he had been carrying his own weight before now.

He dragged Scott slowly across the woods, his feet rustling noisily in the leaves. It felt like it took forever, and Jackson was sure it did, especially with the sore spot on his back where he'd fallen earlier, but he finally found them at the edge of the road. He dumped Scott's body unceremoniously on the ground, his muscles aching from the exertion. Just as he was wondering if this was a good enough spot, the blinding lights of a coming car startled him.

Instinctively he stepped back, ready to run into the cover of the forest, but he also hesitated, and there was no way whoever was coming wouldn't have seen him. If that was the case, running away now would just make him look really guilty. He waved at the car instead, then froze. What if it was one of the hunters that had tailed them? Had he just invited his own death?

The car slowed to a stop beside in front of him and he looked away from the glare of the headlights. Someone got out of the car and rushed over to them. It was the town vet, Dr Deaton. Jackson let out a sigh of relief.

"What happened to him?" the vet asked, his face creased with worry, as he bent over Scott's body.

Jackson didn't know what to say. He hadn't had time to come up with a good lie. His mouth opened and closed wordlessly as he tried to find a tale to spin. Dr. Deaton didn't seem too concerned with getting an explanation though. He ran his hands pensively along the edges of the smoking wound and mumbled to himself. He was suddenly calm.

"I'll take him back to the office." he declared suddenly, standing up. "Help me put him in the car."

Jackson looked at the man like he was insane. "You want to take him to the VET?"

Deaton observed him for a while, as if he wasn't sure of something, then he smiled. It was vaguely creepy, and Jackson couldn't help the apprehension that washed over him. Like he was looking at a serial killer. The doctor's eyes twinkled as he spoke.

"Where else would you take a wounded animal?"

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><p>Jackson stood at the doorway, feeling like he didn't want to be too close to the madness happening in front of him. Scott being operated on by a vet. This could go so wrong, but at least he wasn't asking the questions he'd definitely be asked elsewhere. Then again, if he'd just submitted Scott to a quack doctor, a ton more questions were bound to be on their way. Just how many people knew what Scott was? And what did that make Dr. Deaton? The Vet didn't seem to notice Jackson or his discomfort, instead paying close attention to Scott's bare torso. Unnatural purple veins spread out from the bleeding wound towards the rest of his muscled chest. He gently fished out the bullet, examined it for a moment and placed it in a tray.<p>

"Well? Is he going to live?" he demanded. The look he received in reply was withering. It was a full minute before he gathered the courage to speak again, this time with a little less sass. "If he's going to be fine, can I go?"

Deaton didn't spare him another glance. "I'm not stopping you."

That wasn't the answer he wanted, but it was clear that was all he was going to get. He was eager to get home, far away from the night's disastrous events. Away from this, whatever the hell it was. Scott suddenly woke up, coughing. He tried to get up but his still gaping wound wouldn't allow him and he fell back with a wince.

Deaton spoke in hushed tones to him, and Jackson fought the urge to get closer and hear what he was saying. He was pretty sure Scott didn't notice he was there. He seemed placated by whatever the man was saying to him though, so Jackson decided to leave.

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><p>Scott's eyelids were heavy and for a brief moment he foolishly panicked that they wouldn't open. They did though, and were instantly assaulted by the light above his head. He blinked wildly, momentarily blinded again, and forced his sight to return to normal. He looked around and realized he was lying on the operating table in the animal clinic. Instincts kicking in, he flew off quickly and found himself face to face with his boss when his legs nearly gave out from under him.<p>

"Whoa, easy there. Perhaps you need to sit down," the older man placed supporting hands on his arm and chest.

Scott was confused and disoriented. He felt like he hadn't had a coherent thought in ages. How long had he been out? His hand and eyes flew to the bullet wound, but all that was left it was a bandage. The doctor seemed to be examining him, a concerned look across his dark features. Scott looked back at him, the few memories from last night coming back to him. Dr Deaton had operated on him, laid him on the table like one of the many pets that came in regularly and _fixed_ him. He knew what to do, which meant he knew what Scott was. This was not okay. Well, the healing part was, but everything else was. He'd had enough surprises for one week. Speaking of surprises...

"Where's Jackson?" he whispered. Dr Deaton raised a judgmental eyebrow.

"He left, last night. In a hurry I might add. He clearly did not wish to be here any longer than he had to be." A contemplative pause. "I'm not one to judge, Scott, but I think you need to be more careful about the friends you keep." Scott didn't really feel like going into how much of friends he and Jackson were _not_, so he merely nodded. He gripped the table behind him, feeling his body return to normal and his legs supporting his weight again. His mind still reeled from the fact that Jackson had helped him out last nigh. He didn't think he had it in him to do anything that wouldn't benefit him in some way.

"Did he ... bring me here?"

"I did. I found the two of you at the edge of the road." The doctor, deciding Scott was okay, stepped back. "Though to be fair, he seemed reluctant to leave till he was sure you were going to be okay."

Scott tried to process this but was unable to, so he changed the topic. "Dr Deaton?"

"Yes, Scott?" His nonchalant pleasantry was also driving Scott nuts. Was he really not going to address the elephant in the room? Why was he so ... okay with the situation?

He took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. "How did you-"

The chime of the office door bell interrupted them. Dr Deaton looked up, brows furrowed. Scott couldn't ignore the wave of dread that suddenly came over him. It was a feeling he'd felt increasingly over the past few weeks, starting with that night he'd shifted and gotten on that bus, culminating in the moment he'd gone to open the door last night.

He grabbed his boss's arm, wanting to stop him, but not sure what to say. The man smiled warmly and released himself from Scott's grip.

His fear was confirmed when he heard Peter Hale's voice. It sounded pleasant enough, but Scott could sense Peter's growing irritation. Scott stepped back as far into the room as he could go, feeling cornered. That feeling of helplessness came over him again, as he remembered every single time the Alpha had made contact with him. The pain of being forced to shift, and the subsequent lack of control as his main goal became all about fulfilling the older werewolf's sick wishes.

Would he attack Dr Deaton? Would he make _him_ attack Dr Deaton? He'd gotten lucky the last time, hearing Allison's voice in the lab. This time he wouldn't have that luxury. He preemptively tried to think about her, her nervous smile as she'd sat on his bed just the night before. He groaned when he remembered that he'd asked her to wait for him. This morning was just getting worse. His concentration was broken by a wave of anger.

It was from Peter. He couldn't get to him.

Scott suddenly felt a slight urge to get up. To go outside and meet him. This was accompanied by a slight ache, gently throbbing beneath his skin. He closed his eyes, fingers curling into his fists as he fought a need that was definitely not his own. Breathing was becoming difficult and Scott began to panic. He wasn't sure what to do, he needed something to hold on to, to distract him from the Alpha's draw. Prevent himself from shifting if need be.

He didn't have to fight too hard, he soon realized. Beyond the nagging in a corner of his mind to get up, he stayed put. At that point he began to worry about his boss. But the man radiated nothing but calm.

There was a change in the mood in the air. Something about something called mountain ash. Smashing of a chair. Peter wasn't very powerful inside the clinic and it frustrated him.

The chime of the doorbell again. A quiet threat. And Peter Hale was gone, taking the heavy feeling with him. Scott let out a sigh and collapsed in a heap in the corner of the office. His body was fully healed from the previous night's trauma, but he still felt slightly weak and tired, so he just stayed there a moment.

Dr Deaton found him there, that gentle understanding look in his eyes again. It was almost like nothing ever phased him.

"You should get home," he said, the double meaning not escaping Scott. He blinked back at the man, knowing he was right. The questions would have to wait.

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><p><strong>Clearly this was more of a set-up to the actual story, but it does begin to veer off the original storyline from the next chapter. <strong>


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